


I Wanna Go Where You're Going (I Wish I Could Discover Something That Doesn't Expire)

by br0ken_hands



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Drowning, F/F, First Kiss, Grief/Mourning, but like not in a good way, looks like im back on my bs yall
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-11
Updated: 2018-11-11
Packaged: 2019-08-21 22:57:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,415
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16585886
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/br0ken_hands/pseuds/br0ken_hands
Summary: Glancing down at the body in her arms, Yasha curses their predicament. Her legs are beginning to burn and she doesn’t have the time to think through the pros and cons, all she knows is that a 50% success rate is better than a 0% success rate, and quite frankly, Caleb needs his Empire sister.or, Yasha's only known sacrifice her whole life, what is one more for someone she loves?





	I Wanna Go Where You're Going (I Wish I Could Discover Something That Doesn't Expire)

It was a stupid idea, she had known all along that this was going to get her killed, and here she is, struggling against sentient kelp at the floor of the Lucidean ocean, tangled up to the shins after their party was split during a battle against some great sea being. It had snuck up on them as they sailed on their way to Tal’Dorei, capsizing the vessel and throwing them into the mercy of the waves. Beau had suggested diving to avoid whatever horrors waited for them just under the surface of the water and so instead they're contending with whatever is currently winding its way up Yasha’s thigh to hold her down as she feels her air supply dwindle.

She has a brief macabre thought in the back of her head that maybe this is what Caleb’s smut books talk about when they mention asphyxiation and tentacles, but her thoughts are cleared when she sees Beau wrestling with the weeds beside her, not half as successful as herself in ripping them off her legs. The Magician’s Judge is in her hands and she’s slicing through dark strands around her legs to free herself, kicking towards a struggling Beau.

She’s so close to her, so close to sawing her free, when a strand of kelp whips around, wrapping around Beau’s neck and squeezing. Beau releases a mouthful of air, surprised, suddenly struggling in increased desperation before going limp, the remaining air in her lungs disappearing as bubbles float to the surface. Her body floats motionless in the water and tentacles reach up to wrap at her body, dragging her closer to the ocean floor.

Yasha feels rage tinge her vision at the sight, pushing past the burning in her muscles to free herself from the vines curling around her ankles again and slashing through the kelp at Beau’s feet. The one around her throat gives a greater struggle but even _it_ falls at the fury of Yasha's blade once she has hacked and slashed at it enough.

Dropping the Magician’s Judge, Yasha wraps her arms around Beau and begins to kick upwards, the surface but a dim light in the darkness. Beau’s motionless in her arms and the further they go, the more Yasha realises that at their speed, neither of them are going to make it. Her chest feels like it's going to burst and she has no magic that can save them now. Glancing down at the body in her arms, Yasha curses their predicament. Her legs are beginning to burn and she doesn’t have the time to think through the pros and cons, all she knows is that a 50% success rate is better than a 0% success rate, and quite frankly, Caleb needs his Empire sister.

Pulling the body in her arms up, Yasha presses their lips together and breathes the remaining air in her lungs into Beau’s mouth.

Somewhere in the depths of her chest, Yasha desperately wishes that she had kissed Beau sooner than this.

With her lungs empty and muscles burning, Yasha rages one last time, willing herself to have the strength to carry Beau as far as she possibly can, to give her the best chance of survival. Her vision is darkening around the edges and she’s aware that Beau’s beginning to slip from numb arms so she gathers what dwindling strength remains and shoves her as far up as possible, just as the darkness begins to overtake her. She watches as Beau’s body floats upwards before movement comes back and she moves towards the sunlight. It’s beautiful, the way the waves pattern the surface of the water as she sinks back down into the depths of the seas.

She hopes it’s enough.

\---

Beau doesn't know what happened, one moment she was kicking against the current trying to get out of the grasp of those damn kelp things, and the next she's being pushed up and she can see the light. She kicks, hard, finding renewed energy to push, just far enough to get out, just far enough to reach the surface and...

Water splashes up around her and she gasps, filling her lungs with air. It’s sweet, bright in her chest and she heaves the precious air, sputtering when seawater gets into her mouth and she has to spit it back out again. She lays herself flat, floating on her back, catching her breath, squinting at the sun and wondering how the fuck she and Yasha got out of there. And it's only until her breathing has evened out again that she realises something is wrong.

"Yasha?" She calls, her voice lost at sea. "Yasha?"

There's no sign of her. Inhaling deeply, Beau dives underwater, her eyes stinging as she scours the area immediately under her for Yasha. Nothing. Her lungs burning, Beau surfaces again and dives right back under, this time swimming a little further. She can't see very far beyond but the water is beginning to darken in front of her and she knows that if she goes any further, she might not make it back - she almost didn't the first time. Kicking back up to the surface, Beau gasps, water streaming down her face.

“Yasha? Yasha!” The only response she gets is a shout from far away and if she squints, she can see the rest of the Nein clinging onto fragments of their ship, but no Yasha among them. Fjord waves to her and she dives down one last time, maybe to entertain her notion of hope? Maybe to give herself closure? Whatever it is, the darkness that rises to meet her doesn’t satisfy her desires and she comes up with a pit in her stomach she’s afraid might sink her.

Suddenly, the boost of energy she had earlier feels oddly like a goodbye, her only memento of Yasha lost in the sea air above her when she came up to breathe.

Sometime between hot tears streaming down her face and reaching land, she hears Caduceus' soothing voice echoing in her ear as they tug her from the seas, waterlogged and sobbing.

"It's time to go, Beauregard, it's time to go. She would have wanted you to live."

There's a deep desire somewhere in her chest to leap off the raft back to the place where she lost sight of Yasha, to swim back and beg the seas to take her too because  _why me? It should have been you all along, you fool, you who had so much more to live for, who meant so much more._

_It should have been you._

The raft continues to drift further away and amid inconsolable wails, Beau loses track of the spot on the ocean and with it, all hope of bringing Yasha back.

\---

“Fuck you.”

Beau knows she shouldn't say it. Doesn't have the right to, doesn't even know who she's saying it to anymore, but she's... angry? Sad? Heartbroken? She doesn't know.

She's numb, that's what she is.

The ocean stares back at her, the steady washing of waves upon the shore its only reply. Beau's toes sink into the sand and she thinks that if she stayed here long enough, the ocean would swallow her whole like it did Yasha.

The ocean does not care. It has killed for millions of years and it will kill for millions more, what is an asimaar body to its throne of bones?

"You cannot stand there forever, Beauregard". Caleb mutters quietly from behind her, pant legs lifted to keep them from dampening. Frumpkin sits on his head, shying away from the water.

But she could. Would it be no different from Yasha’s fate, who must now lie on the seabed, torn apart by ravenous fishes who will fight for holy flesh until she is nothing more than bones marked with the thousand bite marks of the beings that feast on her? Beau shudders at the image. Yasha should have never had to endure this indignity alone, should have never had to make this decision. Beauregard would have been happy to die alongside her but she supposes Yasha will never know that.

"Okay."

She doesn't think Caleb believes her and that's okay, she doesn't believe herself either, but the ocean's tides will come and go and all will continue, as true as the sun will rise, as true as Yasha died for her, as true as Beau will never walk again without feeling half of her heart buried in silt beneath the Lucidean Ocean.

 

**Author's Note:**

> It's inspired by C2E40, can you tell? ANYWAYS.  
> Shoutout to Grammarly for catching all my spelling mistakes, and for SLEEVES for entertaining my bullshit  
> Tumblr: frumpkinspocketdimension  
> Discord: SweetBabyRae#0967
> 
> Title from River by LIGHTS


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